And even when the AGI does do work (The Doctor), it’s been given human-like emotions. People don’t want to read a story where the machines do all the work and the humans are just lounging around.
I am taking the opportunity to recommend the culture by Ian M. Banks here is a good entry point to the series, the books can be read in almost any order. It's not like they find no space for human-like actors, but I still think these books show -by being reasonably popular- that there is an audience for stories about civilizations where AGI does all the work.
Of course, your original point still stands if you say "most people" instead.
As I understand it, that point feels wrong to me. There are many things that I would be sad not to have in my life but only on the vaguely long term and that are easy to replace quickly. I have only one fridge and I would probably be somewhat miserable without one (or maybe I could adapt), but it would be absurd for me to buy a second one.
I would say most of the things that I would be sad to miss and that are easy to duplicate are also easy to replace quickly. The main exception is probably data, which should indeed be backed up regularly and safely.
I read the rewrites before I read the corresponding section of the post and, without knowing the context, I find Richard's first rewrite to be the most intuitive permutation of the three. I fully expect that this will stop once I read the post, but I thought that my particular perspective of having read the rewrites first might be relevant.
I just want to point out that the sentence you replied to starts with an "if". "If those genes' role is to alter the way synapses develop in the fastest growth phase, changing them when you're 30 won't do anything" (emphasis mine). You described this as "At first you confidently assert that changing genes in the brain won't do anything to an adult". The difference is important. This is in no way a comment on the object level debate. I simply think Lesswrong is a place where hypotheticals are useful and that debates will be poorer if people cannot rely on the safety that saying "if A then B" will not be interpreted as just saying "B".
I also found this hard to parse. I suggest the following edit: